Lloyds to cut another 2,100 jobs

Lloyds Banking Group has announced it is to cut a further 2,100 jobs over the next three years.

This will be mitigated by the creation of 350 new roles, Lloyds said.

The Unite union was "astonished" by the scale of the cuts, which it said brought total job losses at the group since January to 7,000.

The banking giant, which is 43%-owned by UK taxpayers, was formed by the merger of Halifax Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB late last year.

The job cuts are the result of the bringing together of the two banks, a company statement said.

'Natural attrition'

Rob MacGregor of the Unite union said morale at the banking group was "now truly low".

"Employees across Lloyds are in a permanent state of anxiety as they see their employer announce hundreds of job losses every week," he said.

We understand that this difficult news will be unsettling and we will be working closely with those colleagues affected

Mark Fisher, Lloyds Banking Group

Lloyds said it expected 700 of the job reductions to be made through "natural attrition" across the UK. In addition, 150 jobs will go in West Yorkshire, 100 in Birmingham and 350 across sites in Scotland.

Lloyds said it was also cutting 170 "relationship manager" roles across the UK and closing five commercial service centres this year in Barnstaple, Exeter, Lincoln, Plymouth and Yeovil.

Two call centres are to close in Chester and Speke, affecting 84 jobs.

Staff have also been told that a further 34 commercial service centres are now under review.

Growing toll

In the past six weeks, Lloyds has made a series of job cut announcements:

• On 9 June it said 1,660 jobs would go with the closure of all Cheltenham & Gloucester branches

• A week earlier on 3 June, it revealed plans to shed 530 jobs by the end of the year, including 210 at a customer service unit in Kent

• On 21 May, it said it was cutting 210 jobs as a result of combining the telephone and digital banking services of Lloyds TSB and HBOS

• This was preceded on 19 May by the announcement of 625 job losses due to the merging of its corporate and small-business lending units.

Mark Fisher, director of group operations at Lloyds Banking Group, said: "By bringing the businesses together, we will be better placed for the future. Regrettably, however, some of our colleagues will be affected by our plans.

"We understand that this difficult news will be unsettling and we will be working closely with those colleagues affected."

Many of the 350 jobs being created are in telephone banking for small businesses. Roughly 90 of those would be in Edinburgh and Birmingham, Lloyds said.

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